Thousands Rally In Imphal, Seek To Protect Manipur's Territorial Integrity

Thousands of people from all communities including non-Kuki tribes gathered in Manipur's capital Imphal valley today and held a massive rally for territorial and administrative integrity of the state.

The rally organised by an umbrella body of civil society groups, Coordinating Committee on Manipur Integrity (COCOMI), covered nearly 5 km in the heart of the state capital.

People from all walks of life, communities and age groups including elderly women members of the institution of Meira Paibi (those who hold the torch) walked on the streets shouting slogans themed on unity and saving indigenous people.

The participants held posters and banners that projected what they want the government to do - "save indigenous and rightful citizens of India", "no separate administration" and "save territorial integrity of Manipur".

The people of Manipur from all communities - except sections of the Kuki tribes fighting for a separate land bordering Myanmar and Mizoram - during the protest today put forward six points for the central government to consider.

These are: carrying out the National Register of Citizens (NRC) exercise, scrapping all deals signed with Kuki insurgent groups, combing operations to be done in equal measures in the valley and the hills, saving territorial and administrative integrity of Manipur, and removing so-called buffer zones from districts that prevent people from returning home.

"We are not against any community. Now we are worried about the Centre's policy. Through this rally, we want to tell that any policy aimed at annihilation of indigenous people of Manipur should stop. We can't accept partition policy. The people of Manipur want peace, not division. We are against breaking up of Manipur," COCOMI leader Jeetendra Ningomba told NDTV.

The valley-dominant Meitei community and the hill-dominant Kuki tribes have been fighting for over a year.

The general category Meiteis want to be included under the Scheduled Tribes (ST) category as they claim to be essentially and historically a tribe.

The Kuki tribes want a separate administration or "Kukiland" carved out of Manipur, a demand towards which the Kukis have been working to achieve for decades, citing the need for a homeland for the scattered tribes who share ethnic ties with tribes in neighbouring Mizoram and Myanmar's Chin State.

Kuki groups such as the Churachandpur-based Indigenous Tribal Leaders Forum (ITLF) and the Kangpokpi-based Committee on Tribal Unity (CoTU), and their 10 MLAs have joined the call for a separate administration carved out of Manipur, a demand also made by 25-odd Kuki-Zo insurgent groups that have signed the suspension of operations (SoO) agreement.

This single demand has brought the Kuki insurgent groups, the 10 Kuki-Zo MLAs, and the civil society groups on the same page.

Broadly, the SoO agreement says the Kuki insurgents are to stay at designated camps and their weapons kept in locked storage, to be monitored regularly. A joint monitoring group reviews the SoO agreement every year and decides whether to end or renew it. The deadline for this year's review was February 29.

Kuki groups had on Monday - the day Modi 3.0's first parliament session began - held a rally to push for their separate administration demand.